Forever Young

In the situations in this Southern States drama by Tennessee Williams from 1959, it is difficult to differentiate between their high democratic claims and their fascist despotism. The political disaster, however, is only the background of a larger disaster that nobody can escape from. To blame is “the enemy in all of us, time”. Their war against physical intactness, against youth, cannot be won. They always prevail and, in the end, their victory is complete. Frank Castorf said about his second staging of a Tennessee Williams play: “I believe when you set this play today, you can only deal with the material on an island. The scenery is an island. Like the island of the blessed, of those who have secured for themselves the privilege of unlimited consumption in a perishing world. And this also means the terror of consumption, whose victims we like to be. But this island is also the setting of a power struggle with those not privileged. Like a holiday resort. It is somewhere in a virgin forest, in the jungle, and the air is hot and humid. This jungle setting is a greenhouse and a lust house as well.”